The present invention relates to models that describe system behavior, and more specifically, to conversion and importation of models that describe system behavior into a Unified Modeling Language (UML) meta model-based representation.
UML is implemented to specify, visualize, modify, construct and document artifacts of an object-oriented software intensive system under development. UML offers a standard way to visualize a system's architectural blueprints, including elements such as: actors; business processes; (logical) components; activities; programming language statements; database schemas; and reusable software components. Managing import of textually represented models described by its inter dependent constituent elements into a UML-based model representation can include data being represented by a model that implements nesting of data elements one within another (i.e., containment hierarchy) as well as inheritance between these elements (i.e., logical inheritance hierarchy). The management of the import of textually represented models can be difficult because it is desirable for the import to have a conservative memory footprint as well as an acceptable time for completion.